Advances in microprocessor and related technologies have led to wide spread deployment and adoption of numerous general purpose as well as special purpose computing devices. General purpose computing devices, such as servers and desktop computers, are now endowed with computing power that was once reserved for the most expensive high end computers, requiring special conditioned environment to operate. At the same time, special purpose computing devices such as personal digital assistants, media players, wireless mobile phones are becoming common. Further, advances in networking, telecommunication, satellite, and other related technologies have also led to increase in connectivity between computing devices, making possible networked computing over private and/or public networks, such as the Internet.
However, as networked computing continues to grow in sophistication, enterprise networks become increasingly complex. From configuration, application service provision, change management, to network protection, enterprises currently face many challenges.